AI to accelerate R&D

Overview

Over three weeks, I led a discovery and alignment sprint for a global food and beverage R&D organisation exploring how AI could improve product development and collaboration. We mapped where work was slowing down, identified high-value AI opportunities, and brought leaders and teams together around a shared north-star vision that was grounded in practical use cases and measurable KPIs.

Organisation

Global Food & Beverage leader

My responsibilities

Workshop Facilitation, Service/Journey Mapping, North-Star Vision, Executive Synthesis, Written Content

Challenge

R&D collaboration was slower than it needed to be with information living in too many places and teams working in silos. Leadership saw an opportunity to leverage AI to help teams move faster and communicate better, but they didn’t yet have a shared view of what AI in R&D should actually do, or how they’d track the benefits.

Research playback insights 1
Research playback insights 1

Approach

Lean discovery and analysis → Reviewed existing R&D journey maps and documentation to surface known pain points. Conducted targeted interviews with scientists and managers to uncover daily friction, collaboration gaps, and opportunities for AI to add value. Industry scanning and storytelling → Explored AI use cases across global R&D and innovation labs. Created concise visual examples to make complex technologies tangible and inspire forward-thinking discussion. Collaborative visioning workshops → Facilitated high-energy, remote workshops with R&D leaders and cross-functional teams. Activities included As-Is mapping, How-Might-We framing, persona creation, ideation, and future-state mapping to define priority opportunities. Synthesis and executive alignment → Synthesised outputs into a clear narrative and future-state vision deck. Partnered with a designer to visualise experience maps and drafted a business case linking AI opportunities to measurable KPIs.

Approach

Lean discovery and analysis → Reviewed existing R&D journey maps and documentation to surface known pain points. Conducted targeted interviews with scientists and managers to uncover daily friction, collaboration gaps, and opportunities for AI to add value. Industry scanning and storytelling → Explored AI use cases across global R&D and innovation labs. Created concise visual examples to make complex technologies tangible and inspire forward-thinking discussion. Collaborative visioning workshops → Facilitated high-energy, remote workshops with R&D leaders and cross-functional teams. Activities included As-Is mapping, How-Might-We framing, persona creation, ideation, and future-state mapping to define priority opportunities. Synthesis and executive alignment → Synthesised outputs into a clear narrative and future-state vision deck. Partnered with a designer to visualise experience maps and drafted a business case linking AI opportunities to measurable KPIs.

Logica UI mock-ups
Logica UI mock-ups

Impact + Outcomes

Approach

The sprint gave the team a clear, shared picture of what AI-enabled R&D could look like in practice; from agentic workflows and modular content to the orchestration layers needed to make it real. We translated that into a future-state vision that helped secure executive buy-in, shaped the MVP business case, and highlighted a handful of high-value opportunities to streamline work and improve collaboration. It helped leaders see AI less as a standalone tech investment and more as a catalyst for innovation, connection, and meaningful change, even within a tight timeline. One client summed it up well: “This vision is exactly what we hoped for and is going to bring valuable change to the R&D team globally.”

Lean discovery and analysis → Reviewed existing R&D journey maps and documentation to surface known pain points. Conducted targeted interviews with scientists and managers to uncover daily friction, collaboration gaps, and opportunities for AI to add value. Industry scanning and storytelling → Explored AI use cases across global R&D and innovation labs. Created concise visual examples to make complex technologies tangible and inspire forward-thinking discussion. Collaborative visioning workshops → Facilitated high-energy, remote workshops with R&D leaders and cross-functional teams. Activities included As-Is mapping, How-Might-We framing, persona creation, ideation, and future-state mapping to define priority opportunities. Synthesis and executive alignment → Synthesised outputs into a clear narrative and future-state vision deck. Partnered with a designer to visualise experience maps and drafted a business case linking AI opportunities to measurable KPIs.

Impact

The sprint gave the team a clear, shared picture of what AI-enabled R&D could look like in practice; from agentic workflows and modular content to the orchestration layers needed to make it real. We translated that into a future-state vision that helped secure executive buy-in, shaped the MVP business case, and highlighted a handful of high-value opportunities to streamline work and improve collaboration. It helped leaders see AI less as a standalone tech investment and more as a catalyst for innovation, connection, and meaningful change, even within a tight timeline. One client summed it up well: “This vision is exactly what we hoped for and is going to bring valuable change to the R&D team globally.”

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